Of Fearing Storms
by feather-ink
Summary: (Alt Chapters for Because I Said So) L gains a partner with a past that rivals his in mystery and he's not sure how he feels about it. Hopefully, she'll get him to open his eyes.
1. Chapter 1

Hello wonderful readers and welcome to Of Fearing Storms. OFS is in essential a fanfiction of my own fanfiction or, if you'd prefer, an alternate universe to Because I Said So. You don't have to read Because I Said So but if you want to, be my guest.

For those of you who have read Because I Said So, this is going to be pretty different.

Regardless, I hope you all enjoy it!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, I just own Fay**

* * *

It's the first time that L's been out of Wammy's House since he arrived two years ago. Mr. Wammy had told him that it was dangerous for him to show his face to the public, he would grow up to be the greatest detective ever.

But now, he sits in the back seat of the car, a bag of lollipops in his lap, and Mr. Wammy drives him out of the quiet of the orphanage.

The older man had been on the phone all day and the day before, talking to someone with an American accent and L had been unable to listen on the conversation because the second he picked up a word, Mr. Wammy had ushered him out of the office.

Sucking on a strawberry lollipop, L stares out the window. Greens and dull greys blur by him and he sighs.

"Something wrong?" Mr. Wammy asks, giving him a concerned look through the rear view mirror.

L shakes his head but there are multiple questions on his mind.

What if this new child isn't as smart as Mr. Wammy thinks they are?

What if they don't like L?

What if they're _older_ than him?

Will they beat him up?

L doesn't even want a partner, not that he's told Mr. Wammy, though the old man as an affinity for reading L's mind, but apparently, the stress is too much for one little eight year old boy.

If his collapse from the last case was anything to go by.

L just opens a new lollipop and looks back to the window.

The drive is several hours and L finds that a nap may help him calm down.

Mr. Wammy stops the car at a hospital and L is immediately apprehensive.

Why a hospital?

L slips on his shoes, grimacing as his toes squish together and jams his hat over his head, obscuring his messy hair and part of his face. He doesn't want to go in, he knows that people are going to stare at him. After all, he does look rather strange and probably not as healthy as he should but that didn't give them the right to stare did it?

Mr. Wammy walks to the reception, a light grip on L's hand, and talks with the receptionist before a nurse comes to escort them to the new child.

It's a short walk to the children's ward and L glances through the window they pass. There are only a small handful of children inside, some with breathing tubes, others attached by tubes to rolling stands with bags of fluids.

But they don't go in there, they go to a secluded room and the nurse leaves them there.

L stares at his new partner and then at Mr. Wammy as if asking if the old man is serious.

It's a girl for one, and that's already a blow to L's pride. She's tiny, frail looking, almost as pale as him but not in the chalky way he is, her skin is more of a pale peach color. It's not ugly really, it's just odd to be able to see the majority of her veins. She's blond, not blond, _white_ blond, but her eyes are closed so he can't tell what color there are and judging by the slight tan line across her nose and temples, L would say that she wears glasses though he spots no such eyewear in the room.

She's connected to oxygen and there's an IV in her arm, held in place with more cotton and tape than L thinks is strictly necessary. The only visible injuries that L can see are on her arms and one on her head, which looks particularly nasty if the bandage is anything to go by. It appears that she also had to get stitches, there's a row of them peeking out of her hospital shift near her collar bone.

The clipboard at the end of her bed is only partially filled out.

There's no name, no home address or next of kin, her blood type is B+ though, that's something. Mr. Wammy moves to stand beside the bed.

He gently rests his hand on her shoulder and after a moment or two her eyes open.

They're _blue_. They're probably the bluest eyes that L has ever seen and he stops himself from crawling over to get a closer look at them.

"Hello dear, good to see that you're up again." Mr. Wammy says.

L perches himself on one of the chairs and watches the exchange.

The girl's eyes cloud in confusion before she inhales and nods.

"Right, when was I awake last?" her tone is soft, like someone who's been bullied or doesn't have a strong willed bone in their body.

"Yesterday at five thirty in the morning, I was here to see you."

"Oh, I remember now, five thirty three a.m. You came when they changed the bandages on my head."

Mr. Wammy nodded.

"I've brought him with me to introduce you." L takes that as his cue to get up and meet the girl.

Her eyes are a bit unfocused, maybe it's the lack of glasses, but she holds out her hand, the one not connected to tubing.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Fay."

"Fay, as in Fairies, the mythical race of humanoid magic users as described in folklore?"

"Exactly." The smile she gives him can only be described as soft. Fay lowers her hand back to rest on her stomach when she realizes he's not going to shake it.

"Fay is going to be released from the hospital tomorrow and then she will come back with us and you two will begin your partnership."

"I look forward to working with you." Fay says, giving him a small nod before she closes her eyes and the beeps of the heart monitor steady out a bit more.

Once back in the car, Mr. Wammy looks back to L in the rear view.

"What did you think of her?" he asks and L knows that he genuinely cares about his opinion of Fay.

"She seems nice enough but I won't be able to accurately gauge her until I start working with her." L decides, rooting through the bag of lollipops.

Mr. Wammy just nods and continues driving.

"How long has she been in the hospital?" L asks.

"About a month now."

"But the wound on her head is fresh." L points out.

"Yes, a couple of days ago, Fay got spooked and fell out of the bed, she banged her head and tore the IV from her arm."

"What spooked her?"

"She won't say." Mr. Wammy keeps his eyes focused on the road.

"What do _you_ think spooked her?" L revises.

"What _I _think doesn't matter in this particular scenario. I'll let Fay tell you if she wants to."

L rolls his eyes and unwraps his chosen sweet, sticking it in his mouth and pushing it to his inner teeth as he adjusts his feet on the seat.

Could he really work with Fay? Sure, the girl seemed smart enough, though intelligence wasn't something you could just gauge by physical appearance, it was more of a gut feeling, but would she be able to handle the stress and images of the cases he worked? Did she only hold that polite mannerism in the presence of adults? Maybe she was actually very mean? Where did Mr. Wammy find her and where did she sustain her injuries?

L's mind whirs with questions and Mr. Wammy pretends not to notice the growing pile of wrappers as L nervously chews his way through the lollipops, emptying the bag before they're even half way to the orphanage.

* * *

Truth be told, this story was supposed to be up in July but I had severe writer's block and I just couldn't write it.

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this! I'll try to get the second chapter up as soon as I can.

Please tell me what you think, the reviews make me happy and I write better when I'm happy :P

Thank you Lovelies!

~feather-ink


	2. Chapter 2

I am so sorry for the wait, my family's been pretty crazy and I haven't had time to write. But I'm updating everything today, yes, _everything. _So you finally get the second chapter. Yay!

Big thanks to new and return readers alike, and also to **XWolf26 ** for the lovely review!

**Disclaimer: I do not own Death Note, I just own Fay**

* * *

They drive to the hospital the next day and the doctors look nervous, as if they don't want the girl to leave just yet. Mr. Wammy assures them that Fay will be in good hands and that, should anything happen, they are equipped and trained to handle her.

Fay is on crutches when they get there, a nurse is helping her try them out, guiding her around the room. She keeps bumping into things though, L believes it's the lack of glasses, but she keeps trying so he will give her points for will power.

L doesn't remember seeing any injuries to her feet when he visited the first time, but they were covered by a blanket that time as well. He looks closer and sees a splint on her right knee, it's taped in place and underneath it, he can make out the bandage.

She looks up as they enter and gives a small smile before her faces reverts to an expression of pensiveness and an almost unfocused haze clouds her pretty blue eyes. She sits down on the edge of the bed so the nurse can perform a last minute once over. Once done, Fay slips on a pair of sandals and follows Mr. Wammy and L.

As they walk, L hears a faint jingling and looks around for the sound.

The last place he looks is the place he finds the source.

It's Fay, well, more specifically, the chains on Fay's anklets.

There's a girl at Wammy's who wears an anklet, but it never jingles because it's a single silver chain with a single silver charm.

Fay can't even fit socks over her anklet, or should he classify it as anklets, plural?

The jingling, or better called clanking, isn't annoying per say but it's definitely present. Mr. Wammy checks Fay out at the front desk and then leads his two charges to the car.

Fay shivers through her sweater as a small bout wind blows past before she gets into the car.

L remembers that someone once told him that it would only take a strong gust of wind to knock him over. In his head, he knows that that's impossible but the saying crops up again as he sees Fay sway. Maybe he's witnessing the only human alive to be carried away on a September wind.

But Fay makes it in the car and Mr. Wammy helps her arrange her crutches so she can sit comfortably. She fumbles for her zipper and zips the sweater up to her neck. The sleeve falls past her fingers but her moves are so practiced that L figures she must have had the sweater for a long time.

During the entire ride, Fay says nothing and L observes, not yet willing to offer her a lollipop.

* * *

Once back at Wammy's House Fay follows behind L, and he thinks it's so he won't be able to see the light winces she makes when she moves her injured leg.

Mr. Wammy leads them inside to his office where he gestures for them to take a seat. L perches himself on one of the cushy arm chairs, settling his hands on his knees, watching from behind his messy bangs as Fay struggles to get her small self into a chair of her own.

Eventually, she manages and sets her crutches beside her.

L finds it odd that, even though she seems unaccustomed to her injury, she handles the crutches with familiarity. Could she have been injured in the past?

Even as Mr. Wammy starts talking, explaining the dynamic of the orphanage and L's current position as a prodigy detective, L isn't paying attention.

Though the car ride provided some insight, this meeting does as well.

Fay hangs on every word that Mr. Wammy says, thoroughly paying attention and L has no doubt that if asked to repeat the conversation, Fay would manage flawlessly. L wonders if Fay has an eidetic memory, he himself does not but if Fay does, then that would be a tremendous help.

When they start talking facts, L splits his attention between Fay's reactions and the information coming from the papers on the desk.

Apparently, when she was in the hospital, Mr. Wammy administered an IQ test when Fay was fairly in touch with her surroundings. He wants her to retake it as soon as she's off the pain medication that the doctors prescribed her.

* * *

L shows Fay out and guides her to her room on the second floor.

It takes her a while to get up the stairs with her crutches and she accidently knocked her foot against one of the steps. Much to L's surprise, the pain didn't register to such a magnitude as he would have thought. Fay just winced.

Once up the stairs and down the hall, L unlocks her door and hands her the key.

"Mr. Wammy wants me to stay with you and run through some case practice situations, unless you need to rest of course." L says, following her in and closing the door. He has her small duffel bag, he highly doubts that it's even half way full, and sets it down by the bed.

"That sounds fine, the practices." Fay shifts on the bed, letting her injured leg hang off the bed and tucking her other beneath her.

"Do you wear glasses?" L asks.

He's handed her a paper with the clues on it and she has it rather close to her face.

"I do yes, I'm extremely near sighted but I lost my glasses when I was injured. Mr. Wammy said he could get me a new pair by later today so I just have to wait."

L snatches the paper away.

"You'll only make your sight worse by reading without your glasses, the practices can wait until you've gotten them."

Fay looks as if she's about to argue. L can see it in the tense of her shoulders and the slight shake as the muscles in her arms clench up, as well as the way her eyes narrow microscopically and her mouth begins to form fighting words.

But then she loosens up and nods.

"I suppose you're right." She says easily, clasping her hands in her lap.

L shuffles the papers into order, watching as Fay massages her wrist. It's barely noticeable as the rest of her skin is pale but there's a milky patch of skin around her wrist, like a bracelet she'd never taken off.

"Missing a bracelet?" he asks.

"Yes." Fay answers without hesitating.

"Something else you lost when you sustained your injuries." It's not a question.

"Kind of. I didn't really lose it in the sense that I don't know where it is. I know exactly where it is."

"Then, it was taken from you." L concludes.

"Correct."

They don't talk of Fay's bracelet after that because Fay says she's tired and L leaves her to lay down after she's taken her pain medication and falls asleep before he even closes the door.

As he makes his way to his own room, he encounters Mr. Wammy.

"How did she sustain her injuries?" L asks.

He knows Mr. Wammy won't answer him. He'll say that it's Fay's choice to tell him.

But that's not the point.

The old man knows, and L doesn't.

L likes knowing things, and not knowing practically kills him.

"I can't tell you that L, you know that." Mr. Wammy says gently.

"Yes, I know." _And I will find out._

* * *

Alrighty, it's like 200 words shorter than the first chapter, sorry sorry, I'll try to make the next one longer to compensate.

Anyhows, I hope you guys like it, if you've got any questions or constructive criticism, reviews of any kind or greatly appreciated. Tell me whatcha think!

Thanks Lovelies!

~feather-ink


	3. Chapter 3

I suck, I know, this chapter is late. I got super sick over the weekend and I couldn't do _anything_. However, I went back to school and now I'm swamped in make up work, but i wanted to give you guys your update!

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note, I just own Fay**

* * *

The next time L sees Fay, she's in the library, immersed in a book written in what L assumes is French.

She's seated in one of the worn armchairs, sitting side ways so her legs are over one arm and her head is propped against the other. Her glass are on the floor beside her crutches and she looks extremely tired, as opposed to her usual calm disinterest.

When he approaches, she shows no sign of noticing him and stays completely focused on her book. As he gets closer, L can see her lips moving, silently reading aloud.

"Fay."

The girl blinks quickly, like doing so will bring her back to reality.

"L?" she shifts to sit properly, picking up her glasses and sliding them on. They magnify her eyes and L sees that there's a black fleck in her left and grey one in her right. It's a strange thing to notice, but he does so, before noticing the fact that Fay's glasses are the same color as her eyes.

"You skipped your classes?" he means to say it in a condescending way but it comes out as more of a question than anything else.

"You shouldn't ask a question you already know the answer to," she says quietly, "especially one with such a blatant answer."

L stares.

"Sorry, that was something my mother said and it just popped into my head." Fay apologizes, equally as quiet as before.

"Why did you skip?"

Fay sighs and sets down her book, picking up her crutches.

"I didn't intend to really, I showed up for the first minute but it was overwhelming so I found my way here where it was quiet."

"You can't skip classes." L says, as if chastising a child, which, technically, he is but L himself is also a child.

"I understand, and I'm sorry." Fay whispers, fiddling with her glasses.

L doesn't see Fay for the rest of the day, she holes up in her room to finish work she missed when she skipped classes and he'd not seen her at dinner.

However, at almost nine o' clock, there's a hesitant knock at his door and he when he answers, he sees Fay trying to balance a number of papers and files, all while managing her crutches.

"Um Mr. Wammy wanted us to go over some practice cases, to keep us in shape until he secures an actual one."

L, being a gentleman, takes the papers from Fay so she can focus on her crutches, not having to worry about falling in her face.

"I usually sit on the floor but there's an office chair if you'd prefer it." He offers, setting up the files.

"That's fine, I'm partial to the floor anyways." Fay offers, carefully lowering herself onto the floor, picking up the file labeled with a one.

She reads through it while L continues laying out files, eyes darting back and forth at a dizzying rate that reminds L of a typewriter.

"You read rather fast." L comments, crouching down beside her to look over the paper.

"Oh, hmm, yeah, I guess I do, I've always read this fast."

They begin their work, both surprised at how easy it is to bring their ideas together, ultimately coming to the right conclusion.

L notes that when Fay thinks hard, she toys with the metal anklets or the zipper on her jacket.

Fay notes that when L thinks hard, he bites his thumb and stares at the ceiling.

As they solve the case, they solve each other. Both children know what the other is doing but they say nothing because that would mean admitting defeat.

L notes that Fay smiles when she talks, it's minute, almost unnoticeable, but it's there, like she has to force herself, a way to stay happy.

Fay notes that L doesn't smile, ever, it's not hard to notice though, his eyes and face and posture give off a sense of guardedness.

They work until dinner time and Mr. Wammy has to come in and pull them away from the cases, pretending not to notice when they each grab a file as they leave. Fay is getting used to her crutches, though she's still awkward with them, and he has to help her down the stairs.

She doesn't quite trust herself not to fall down face first.

L and Fay sit at the same table, the table that only L used to sit at, and they work the files they brought.

"When do you think we'll get a real case?" Fay asks, carving out shapes into her gelatin.

"Most likely within the next month." L decides, spearing a strawberry and shoving the leafless piece into his mouth.

"It'll be different won't it? Because there are actual lives at stake, we can't just close a file and say we'll get back to it later."

"You know Fay," L says, "you shouldn't ask a question you already know the answer to, especially one with such a blatant answer."

Fay scowls lightly and uses her spoon to catapult a piece of gelatin at him. L, not expecting the blond to be so bold, doesn't move out of the way in time and ends up with strawberry gelatin on his face.

By the time dinner is over and done with, Fay and L have to wash up and change clothes.

Suffice to say, the cleaning staff is none too happy but Mr. Wammy is quite pleased with how well the two are getting along.

The two children meet again in L's room to finish up the rest of the practice files.

"Um, L?" Fay asks suddenly.

"Yes?"

"I know you didn't want a partner to begin with, but, um, am I okay?" L looks up to see Fay's attention falsely focused on her file. She doesn't want to look up and see rejection but she's eagerly listening for his reply.

"I believe I will be able to tolerate working with you." He says stiffly, looking back to his own file.

He misses the mile wide grin that erupts over Fay's lips

At close to midnight, the duo finishes their practice files and L helps Fay up, as her good leg had fallen asleep and now, walking on her crutches felt weird.

As she stands, her eyes flit to the window.

"L?"

"Yes?"

"Are there a lot of storms here?" she asks.

L finds it an odd question, most people don't care about weather patterns. At least, he doesn't think they do, but that's only because he doesn't. His work can be done no matter the weather, so it doesn't matter. More importantly, why does Fay want to know?

"Sometimes, it rains a lot, particularly in this season."

Fay bites her lip and L notes the action, tucking it away for later investigation.

"Right, um, thank you." Fay gets her crutches righted and leaves as fast she can with a sleeping foot and an injured knee.

"Afraid of storms?" L says aloud to the empty room, "A phobia of rain maybe?"

He shakes his head and places the solved files on his desk, climbing into bed without changing into pajamas.

The detective part of L wants to find the file Mr. Wammy has on Fay and do some research. But the side of L that still nags him to try and have a conscience, to try and _feel_, says he should respect her privacy.

No matter how badly he wanted to know what landed her in the hospital and how Mr. Wammy had found her.

* * *

What do you guys think?

I've gotta update Little Lamb and get back to my extensive make up work, but I still want to hear from you guys so be sure to tell me what you think, or offer up reviews and questions!

I don't wanna check my inbox, I'm lazy and still feel like hell, but I believe someone asked if it was Beyond that scared Fay in the hospital, back in Chapter one I think, and I won't confirm or deny anything but keep in mind, they're all the same age (in this story anyways) so eight year old Beyond would have to break in the hospital, just keep it in mind! :)

Anyways, I love questions, keep them coming!

Thank you Lovelies!

feather-ink


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